This week, the European Commission proposed a framework for the intellectual property protection of regional and craft products, inspired by the success of similar protected geographical “trademarks” used for wines, spirits, and agricultural products.

This will, or at least could, apply to a variety of products, such as Murano glass, Donegal tweed, Porcelaine de Limoges, Solingen cutlery, and Boleslawiec ceramics. The aim of the proposal is to improve the fight against counterfeit products and provide specific support to small and medium-sized enterprises.

But for some, such a decision comes too late... For example, in 2017, Poterie Renault fired its kilns for the last time, as the company had struggled to make ends meet in recent years. The closure of the pottery workshop is a modern story, one drop in a wider wave of small business closures. It illustrates how Europe is failing to realise the economic potential of its craft heritage. At the time of liquidation, it was not the founders or their sons and daughters at the helm of Poterie Renault , but the fifth generation running the pottery business in Argent-sur-Sauldre, a town of 2,000 inhabitants in the Loire Valley.